


275 days

by mysonny (orphan_account)



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Fluffy and a bit angsty I guess, Long-Distance Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:14:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26979406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/mysonny
Summary: Snippets from each month of Lindsey's and Emily's year.orF*ck 2020orLong-distance sucks
Relationships: Lindsey Horan/Emily Sonnett
Comments: 6
Kudos: 53





	275 days

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, long time no see. I have another story that I haven't updated in ages because I can't really find the inspiration for it. But this idea came to my mind a week ago and I actually put it into words. Yay.
> 
> Also, English isn't my first language, just fyi.

**January**

“What do you mean?” Lindsey whisper-yells. She tunes out their teammates around them. They are sitting in the dining room at January camp. It’s their first evening, not everyone has arrived yet but most of their teammates are already there, eating dinner, chatting about their holidays and their time with their families. Ali and Ash are telling Abby and Jess about their wedding, Christen explains some of their business details to Sam.

Emily looks at her questioningly. “What? What do you mean “what do I mean’?”

When Lindsey doesn’t answer, she lets out a big sigh, her face looks pained.

“I think it was kinda clear, wasn’t it? Mark is trading me. To Orlando. I’m no longer a Thorn.” She sits back and crosses her arms, looking at the wall right over Lindsey’s shoulder. Decidedly not in Lindsey’s eyes.

When it finally starts to sink in, Lindsey of course starts to cry. She wonders if they are making a scene or if the others haven’t noticed yet.

Emily had requested for them to sit alone. Lindsey – and everyone else – had assumed it was because they hadn’t seen each other in a couple of weeks and since it was the first night they were still able to be girlfriends before camp officially started and it would be all business.

But clearly it was to break these news to her.

“I just– I don’t understand.” Lindsey looks at Emily who is clearly trying not to cry as well. Emily doesn’t cry in front of others, even Lindsey had only seen her cry once.

She bites her lower lip and takes Lindsey’s hand in hers.

**February**

She lets herself into the apartment, finding it dark and seemingly empty.

“Em? Babe, I thought we were having dinner?” she shouts into the quiet. She takes her shoes off and navigates through the half-packed apartment. Boxes everywhere, Emily’s stuff seemed to be getting more and more each day they spent packing.

She finds her girlfriend curled up in her bed. Emily had pulled her blanket securely around herself, phone clutched in her hand. Lindsey can see the tear-streaks clearly on her face.

Apparently, she had fallen asleep. Or rather cried herself to sleep.

Lindsey lets herself into the room quietly, trying not to wake her girlfriend. She doesn’t manage with Bagel, the dog waking and blinking at her but ultimately deciding that she isn’t worth getting up.

She slides into bed behind Emily, lifting the covers and sneaking her arms around her waist. Emily automatically turns around and cuddles into her. Her head finding its usual spot in the crook of Lindsey’s neck. Lindsey pulls Emily into her as much as she can.

Seeing Emily this upset and vulnerable makes her want to cry. Of course, she can’t right now because if she woke up, Emily then would only worry about her. And right now, Lindsey needs to worry about Emily and not the other way around.

She feels Emily’s lips on her neck before she feels her stir. Emily murmurs something incomprehensible but Lindsey doesn’t want to break the silence yet. The real world will catch up to them if they break the silence. For now, she rather stays in her own world with Emily wrapped around her.

Lindsey kisses the crown of Emily’s head after a few minutes when she hears her girlfriend’s stomach rumble.

“Let’s get you something to eat alright? The takeout I brought is probably cold by now but I’ll heat it up for us. You can stay in bed and we can eat here as well.”

“No. Don’t leave me,” Emily whines “you already made me cry.”

Lindsey freezes at that. “I did? What– how?”

“I finally read your post from a few weeks ago.”

**March**

Lindsey tucks Emily a few feet away from the others in front of the hotel, waiting for the vans to take them to the airport.

She knows that saying goodbye will be extra hard today and she doesn’t want an audience for that. And she also knows that her girlfriend definitely won’t be open and vulnerable if their friends would be there. Their huge upset during January camp had been enough for her. Everyone had walked on eggshells around both of them. And while Lindsey had just cried some more, Emily hadn’t, so no one knew how to handle her or act around her. That camp had just been awkward for her and she didn’t need any more of that.

Lindsey turns to look at Emily who she finds already looking at her. She’s wearing one of Lindsey’s sweaters that is of course a little big on her. Emily’s still sleepy, all squinty eyed but looking up at Lindsey with the smile that their friends had dubbed “the Lindsey-smile”: a crooked half-smile that shows off one her dimples.

It’s Lindsey’s favorite, of course. Maybe she’s a bit biased.

She fondly smiles back at her girlfriend and softly kisses her. They won’t be able to kiss later at the airport and she doesn’t want to leave without a goodbye kiss.

Emily pulls her into a hug. She hears a quiet “I’ll miss you” mumbled into her shoulder.

Emily gets the E-Mail while she is still at the airport in Frisco. Her and Mal’s flight is one of the last to leave so they’re still sitting at their gate waiting for it to be called. Their phones beep simultaneously, Mal pulls hers out and reads the Mail for them both.

“Blah blah blah, we are sorry to inform you that all upcoming games for both the men’s and women’s senior team have been canceled. And then some more official stuff.” She turns to Emily with wide eyes.

Emily is completely still. She just said goodbye to Lindsey not even an hour ago under the pretense of seeing each other in around four weeks for the Australia friendly. This isn’t how they had planned it. Emily hates it when plans don’t go as intended.

They also played in front of an audience just last night. The jump from a normal game to a cancelation seems a bit drastic to her. Didn’t everyone say this thing wasn’t so bad?

She feels Mal’s eyes on her as she opens her phone to her texts with Lindsey. “You okay?”

“I don’t know.” She’s exhausted. She didn’t sleep enough. She misses Lindsey already. She hates the distance.

 **Dasani** : I love you

**April**

Lindsey hears Emily softly singing to herself while she cooks.

“If only in my mind.  
No, I haven't seen her banks in such a long, long time.”

She has a feeling that Emily was laying on the Southern accent extra thick just for her. She looks away from Fergy to her phone that’s propped on her living room table, facetime running. She can see her girlfriend making dinner for her parents, dancing a little to the music that’s probably coming from around the house somewhere. Lindsey isn’t sure, she can’t hear it properly with Emily singing over it.

“I'd love to see my mama  
Maybe go for a drive  
But I gotta play the star in some little town again tonight.”

Lindsey likes the routine they have going on. Between working out and virtual meetings with their teams, they try to spend as much time together as they can even with roughly 1,200 miles between them.

Instances like the one at hand aren’t unusual, they both go about their day but have facetime running to exist in each other’s space. Sometimes they watch movies together this way, small commentary here and there between them until Emily falls asleep because it’s much later for her than it is for Lindsey.

Often Emily cooks and Lindsey watches and they pretend Emily is teaching her even though they both know that Lindsey will never be a decent cook. She has her go-to-dishes and that’s enough for her, thank you very much.

They even take their dogs on walks at the same time. That’s usually when they actually talk, Emily out of the house and both letting their minds run free when they’re out in nature. Of course, Fergy can’t nearly run as far as Bagel can. Sometimes Lindsey ends up carrying her dog for a while before Emily and Bagel are done. And sometimes she just sits down somewhere in the sun, watching her tiny little Fergy sleep, but not ending the call before Emily and Bagel are back home.

Emily even gets Lindsey to watch that stupid show with the tigers on Netflix everyone is talking about. Rose had started it seemingly ages ago and was bugging them – but mostly Emily – to watch it. Lindsey really didn’t see the appeal but caved nevertheless. Of course she did, Emily asked her. They had only ended the last episode last night, five days later than it came out which was the cause of some more verbal abuse by Rose.

“What’s that song you’re singing? I haven’t heard it yet?” she interrupts Emily’s singing.

“You haven’t? What? But Linds, I made a new playlist today and it’s the first one on there. I am hurt. Truly hurt by your neglect of my Spotify account!” Emily pouts, dinner long forgotten.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m very sorry. What dumb name did you come up with this time? Is it only country or can I listen to it as well?”

“I’ll have you know that it’s a very tasteful playlist! It’s a variety of country love songs.”

Lindsey only groans.

“Hey now, not so fast with the judgement! Have a look at it and listen to that first song at least?”

The title of the playlist ‘Tiger Queen’ already makes her smile but not even halfway through the song it transforms into a full-blown grin.

“I miss you, too.”

Emily only winks at her, trying to hide her own bashful smile and blushing cheeks, happy that her small gesture has the desired effect.

**May**

“I think we need to ask a couple more questions before we – I – can make a decision.” That statement Becky made at the end of the National Team zoom-meeting rings in Emily’s head for a while after the call ended.

“What do you think?” Lindsey’s voice interrupts her thoughts.

“I think that Becky was right. The tournament or cup or whatever can be pretty cool but I want us to be safe, you know?” She waits for an affirmative hum from her girlfriend before she continues. “The cases in Utah are raising right now and I don’t think they have the whole bubble thing figured out just yet. But I mean, I believe they will figure it out and when they do I am fully onboard of course. I want to play!” and then with a quieter voice “I want to see you.”

“I want to see you, too. I think the general plan they have is already pretty good. And they have a little more time before they want to make the official announcement. So, I guess they can figure it out. Especially with all those questions Becky will send them from us.”

They are on their daily walk together and as always use it to have some alone time where they can talk things through.

“I can’t believe we could see each other in a couple of weeks though!” Lindsey continues “I mean sure they said we can’t see people from other teams but maybe we can hang out with a distance or something, like in the lobby so they can see that we’re not breaking protocol.”

Lindsey gets a mischievous look on her face. “Or maybe we’ll get to play each other. I’ll allow you to foul me a few times for extra body contact.”

If they were together Lindsey would wink and Emily would blush at the implications behind that statement. But they’re not so Emily can’t see the satisfied look on Lindsey’s face when Emily reacts exactly as Lindsey predicted.

“Babe!” Emily hisses, “Don’t say things like that, aren’t there people around you?”

“Nope. Just Fergy. And this is nothing he hasn’t heard.”

Emily doesn’t have a comeback for that.

By now, Lindsey has found the bench she often sits on and lets Fergy off his leash. He sniffs around a little before laying down at her feet to take a nap.

“Just– ” she takes a breath, not knowing how to bring this up, and starts again “Maybe one of us can fly home with the other? Like I know we’re not supposed to travel but we are travelling anyway and I just want to see you. I miss you so much and as nice as talking on the phone is I just want to hug you and kiss you and– you know. And maybe we can both go to Portland. Or I can come to Marietta if you want that. If your parents are fine with that obviously, wouldn’t want to intrude or anything– ”

“Linds, you’re rambling.” Emily laughs “Of course I want to spend time together afterwards! Did you think I wouldn’t want to?”

“No. I don’t know. I just got nervous asking you that all of a sudden. Like it was our first date again or something.”

“You’re so cute! I miss you, too. A lot. Let’s go to your apartment in Portland when we’re both finished. I’ve got to figure out how to get Bagel there but that’s not something for right now.”

“I’m not cute.” Lindsey grumbles.

“Yes, you are.”

**June**

Emily doesn’t get the chance to tell Lindsey herself.

When they had the first positive test the weekend right before going to Utah, Emily told herself and her girlfriend that it was fine. She didn’t come in close contact with the infected person. And she otherwise behaved accordingly, didn’t go out, didn’t see anyone out of practice. She was very, very sure she didn’t get infected.

But now she is one of the players that just got their positive test results back. The club did an extra round of testing to make sure their results from last week were accurate. And apparently, hers wasn’t.

While the staff tries to set up more tests, to get more information, and to deal with the consequences for the team, she sits in her apartment and tries to make sense of it all. Lindsey knows that her result was supposed to come around this time but thankfully she is at practice right now so she can ignore the repercussions of this for a little longer. She needs to process this by herself for a little while.

Unfortunately for her, the news of several positive tests and the withdrawal of the team break almost right away. The national team group chat blows up with questions about their Orlando teammates. After a while, Ash answers them and explains that she and Syd are fine but that both Ali and Emily got tested positive.

Portland is on their lunchbreak between two sessions so Lindsey sees the messages as soon as she gets them. She frantically tries to reach Emily but can’t.

Their friends start to text her as well, Rose worriedly demands answers that Lindsey doesn’t have, Mal is just confused, and Sam is very shocked.

It stresses her a lot.

Lindsey is worried about her girlfriend on the other side of the country that she can’t reach, so she doesn’t feel capable of dealing with her friends as well. She starts pacing up and down an empty hallway in their facilities. She needs to do something but can’t. She tries calling Emily for the umpteenth time.

She’s worried about Emily’s health. Obviously about her physical health but also about her mental health. Lindsey starts spiraling, wondering what this means for Emily’s career. Not getting to play means no exposure to Vlatko.

And Emily needs the exposure to Vlatko, they both know that. Lindsey’s heart breaks for her girlfriend.

Her team starts with their second session for the day but she lets her teammates handle her coach for now. She’ll talk to him later, she can’t leave her phone right now.

Emma starts calling her, too. And Emily’s parents. Then her own parents. If her phone wasn’t her only way of reaching Emily she would’ve thrown it at the wall by now. She can’t handle these calls.

She fires off a quick text to both their families that she hasn’t heard back from Emily yet and that she will let them know. Whatever and whenever that'll be.

When Emily finally calls her, she can’t even get out half a sentence before she hears the sobs coming from the other end.

And then Lindsey’s heart breaks again for her girlfriend who never lets herself cry.

**July**

Emily watches all of Lindsey’s games of course. Being stuck at home because of a false-positive was bad but seeing her girlfriend play some soccer almost made up for it. She is a little split though between being salty about her trade and thus not wanting to root for Portland and just always wanting the best for Lindsey.

She sees throughout the tournament how much weight is on Lindsey’s shoulders. She seems to feel responsible for every mistake they make, for every chance not scored, and for every goal conceded.

Emily hates it. It’s something Lindsey always does. She takes too much upon herself.

And after Lindsey had to miss the last game in the preliminary round she knew that she would do everything to play in the quarter final. Especially against North Carolina.

It’s absolutely not Lindsey’s weather. She prefers night matches anyway but a day match at around 95 degrees is probably her worst-case scenario.

She can see that Lindsey is getting exhausted after around 40 minutes. Her small hip injury from last game is probably nagging her a bit again and that in addition to the weather and turf is just too much.

Lindsey takes a hit from Sam of all people right before halftime. She looks clearly in pain, holding her upper thigh/hip area. Again.

She has a very frustrated look on her face as she walks off the field but is back on for a few seconds before halftime.

Emily hopes against everything she knows about Lindsey and Mark that they’ll sub her out. She doesn’t want Lindsey to risk her health.

Of course, Lindsey is back on the field for the start of the second half. Emily is still torn between worry and joy about it when Lindsey sits down on the field in the 49th minute. Emily immediately knows Lindsey is done. Pierre annoyingly blocks her view of Lindsey while he assesses her injury some more.

He finally steps aside and helps Lindsey up to leave the field. She can see that Lindsey is close to tears. Out of frustration or pain, she can’t tell.

The rest of the game has her on the edge of her seat. Not because of the game but because she doesn’t know what's up with Lindsey. Mike and Lori mention her a lot but never talk about her injury and what is happening with her. They had told them updates on Reynolds after she got injured and Emily wonders why they can’t do that with Lindsey as well.

She hates not being there with Lindsey right now. She hates not knowing how she is. She hates it all.

The Thorns score a goal and she can at least see Lindsey for a few seconds, up on her feet and celebrating the goal. She hobbles back to her seat on the ice-cooler but she takes it as a good sign. Emily wishes the game to be over and for Lindsey to finally get to her phone, she needs to know how Lindsey is.

She gets a look at her again when Britt gets interviewed after the game. Lindsey is shown laughing in the background. At least she seems to be not too down because of her injury.

Emily just wishes she would call her already.

**August**

“I’m going to Sweden.” Emily interrupts Lindsey as she talks about Sam and possibly Rose going to England for the 2020/21 season.

“You’re what now?”

Emily takes a deep breath as she steels herself for the conversation they are about to have.

“I am going to Sweden, Gothenburg to be specific. You know where Chris played when she didn’t want to go to Houston?” Lindsey tries to interrupt her.

“No let me finish please? You can ask everything you want afterwards. I know this comes out of leftfield for you. And I’m sorry for that. I just didn’t want to take your focus away from your games. I’ve been talking to Vlatko about my future and he told me that I needed to play. Like I didn’t know that! He actually encouraged me to go overseas. And then I talked to a lot of people with different connections and I finally got a good offer from Gothenburg a few days ago.”

Lindsey rubs her face.

“Look I want to be mad at you for not telling me but I also know you need this. You can’t just play some bullshit friendlies or whatever they come up with for us for the rest of the year.”

Emily exhales the breath she had been holding in while Lindsey was talking.

“That doesn’t mean I like how you went about it though! Em, really? You were planning this for weeks and didn’t talk to me about it?” Lindsey starts talking faster now, always a telltale sign that she is getting worked up. “And your excuse is bullshit by the way, I can’t believe you think that soccer is more important to me than you are.”

By now Lindsey is on the verge of tears and Emily knows she has fucked up.

“I don’t think that soccer is more important to you than I am. But your performance on the field is more important to me than telling you about a deal that wasn’t even there yet. Look, I know I should’ve told you sooner but you already were carrying the whole city of Portland on your shoulders through that tournament. I just couldn’t be the person to load more on top of that.” She looks up from her lap to find Lindsey’s eyes on her phone screen.

“I couldn’t be responsible for your head not fully in the game. I just– gosh! This sucks! Linds, babe, I don’t want you to cry. Not ever, but certainly not because of me.” Emily pouts which makes Lindsey let out a watery laugh.

“I know you don’t. And I know you need to go. Doesn’t mean I have to like it, does it? It’s the same time zone as Paris, isn’t it? So, 8 hours ahead of Denver and 9 ahead of Portland?”

“Yeah” Emily whispers.

**September**

Lindsey thought they had gotten used to dating long distance. It turns out that long distance with a two or three hours time difference was nothing compared to the eight or nine hours difference they have now.

She can’t even sugarcoat it. It’s hard. It’s really hard.

Emily gets up when Lindsey goes to bed. Usually she gets up around 7.30 but doesn’t have to leave the house till 9.30 to go to training. That means that Lindsey is in bed and ready by 10.30ish to talk to Emily for a bit while she’s having breakfast. She meets Emily’s roommate Julia that way. Sometimes Emily stays in the kitchen and they include Julia in their conversation, Lindsey usually gets more information out of her about training, the team, and how it’s going for Emily than out of Emily herself.

Most times though, Emily takes her breakfast and phone back to her room so they get some time alone.

They don’t have the same routine for Lindsey’s morning. When she wakes up, it’s afternoon for Emily and that often means she is doing other things, exploring the city with some of her teammates or Bagel. And then when Emily goes to bed around 11 pm her time, it’s 2 in the afternoon for Lindsey in Portland which is also not the best time to facetime. Sometimes they try just on a whim. Sometimes it works out and they can talk more than once a day but more often they just stick to their breakfast routine.

They try to text as much as possible as well. It gives them both great comfort to find a text from the other after practice or in the morning. If she doesn’t have a game herself that day, Lindsey even gets up early for Emily’s games and texts her her commentary live. On these days, Emily easily finds 40 new texts on her phone after the game.

It’s taking a toll on them both. Lindsey can see that Emily wants to tell her all about her new city and what new thing she’s seen. But Emily always holds back her excitement. Lindsey thinks it’s to spare her feelings. To not seem like she’s having too much fun without her girlfriend.

She does the same. She can see the hurt that sometimes briefly flashes through Emily’s eyes when she tells her something she did with Rocky or Sophia. It’s typically when she goes to places with them she usually went to with Emily. But she can’t really change her coffee place, can she?

So, she doesn’t always tell Emily about going places with her new and their mutual friends.

**October**

Emily had an off game. She knows she did.

To most people, it probably didn’t look like it. Her team played good, but to be fair Umea also wasn’t all that great to begin with. She had done a solid job defending but couldn’t get forward as much as she’d like. Didn’t push up as far, didn’t make as many runs, didn’t cross the ball into the box as often.

Her head just wasn’t fully in the game.

After the game, she doesn’t find the usual texts from Lindsey on her phone. Which was to be expected after not getting any texts for two days now. Which was also not surprising after their fight on Thursday. Right now, Emily wasn’t even sure where they really stood.

They fought before, sure. But never like this. Usually it were little things that were easy to fix. When Lindsey had messed with her straightened shoes on too many times, when she was zooming around and annoying Lindsey with it, when one of them was in a bad mood from something else and took it out on the other.

She isn’t a jealous person. They both know that. So Emily’s jealousy had come out of nowhere for Lindsey. It had been piling up for her for weeks though. She probably should’ve told Lindsey before but she didn’t want to cause a fight. She sees the irony in that herself.

“What’s up with you?” Julia asks her. Emily is moping around in their living room, trying and failing not to think about Lindsey and the fight and the textless phone and the fight and Lindsey.

“Nothing.” She hopes she makes it clear that she doesn’t want to talk if she keeps her answer short.

Julia doesn’t get the message.

“Skitsnack! You’ve been in a bad mood for days now.” she crosses her arms. “Now tell me! Did you fight with Lindsey?”

Emily’s head shoots up. “How did you know?”

“Sonnett, I’m your roommate. You usually talk every morning. That has been slacking a bit for two weeks or so but never two days in a row. You didn’t talk yesterday or today.”

“You should’ve become a detective.” Emily grumbles, still not willing to talk. Julia only raises an eyebrow and gestures for Emily to talk.

“I blew up on her because I’m jealous, okay? So this stupid fight is my fault which only makes it worse. I’m not even actually jealous, like I know Sophia has a boyfriend and she’s also way too young, and then there’s Rocky who definitely is single, but I guess I envy them? Sophia’s the one why they traded me and now Lindsey does all the things we used to do together with her and their other new friend? It’s just not fair. And to spite me she even tripped Sophia’s carry-on today!” Emily huffs and tries to blink away her tears.

“Okay half of that went over my head because you talk very fast and I don’t know these people and what was that about the luggage? But anyways, it’s not fair to Lindsey, you know that, right?”

“Yeah, I do.” Emily looks very defeated now.

“Lindsey can’t put her life on hold. And even if you were in America you still wouldn’t be there. She has to make new friends and do things with them.”

“I know. I just don’t want her to go to our avocado toast place before a game with them.” Emily almost whispers. “That was our tradition, we never even took the Aussies there. Does that mean nothing to her?”

“Okay, maybe you need to talk about both your boundaries.”

“If she ever talks to me again, she hasn’t texted me back in two days.”

**November**

It’s only her second day of quarantine. She hates it already.

Getting back to the US has been way harder than getting to Sweden. The situation is so much better in Sweden than it is in Georgia, it’s almost laughable. And still, now she has to quarantine when she didn’t have to do that when she got to Sweden. But of course, she obliges. Airplanes and airports are not safe places to be right now, she could’ve easily gotten infected there. And she for sure wouldn’t want to risk her family’s or anyone’s safety.

Even though it is her and Emma’s birthday in three days.

Her phone interrupts her thoughts. Her heart flutters when she sees Lindsey’s name and picture on the display.

“Hello there” she grins cheekily. Things are still a little shaky with them, both careful with each other, not wanting to mess things up again. But they had talked it through. They needed several days for that, both not wanting to settle for the easy way out, to just forgive and forget, but rather having the difficult conversation and in the end really understanding the other person and their feelings.

“Are you bored yet?” Lindsey asks without a greeting.

“What do you think? Of course I am!” Emily gestures around herself “There’s only so much one can do in this apartment alone.”

“I have a fun task for you. Or rather a proposal. I want you to come to Denver or I’ll come to Georgia, I don’t care either way. But let’s finally do what we wanted to do during the summer. I want to see you and I hope you want to see me, too?” Lindsey’s face miraculously shows no trace of the anxiety that’s very evident in her voice.

“Yes.” Emily breathes out. “So badly. I just didn’t want to come on too strong or just invite myself over.”

“I don’t want you to feel insecure about this, about us, anymore, okay? If you want to see me, it doesn’t come off as clingy or something, we haven’t seen each other since March for god’s sake. I want you to want to see me!”

“Okay, okay.” Emily sighs, relieved. “I get out of quarantine on the 4th. Give me a few days with my family, like a week. And then I’ll drive over to Denver, that’ll probably take two days I guess? Or one and a half but I need to make one long stop to sleep. And a few for Bagel. So I guess, I can be there by the 13th?”

“I can’t wait so see you!”

**December**

It takes Emily almost two full days of driving to get from Marietta to Denver. She wants to give Bagel enough breaks and also lets her run a little at one of the stops. She spends the night just outside of Kansas City. The city is a little more than halfway between Marietta and Denver but seeing that it was a Saturday the next day she figured it was wise to drive a little more the first day.

She arrives in the late afternoon in Denver. Lindsey expects her, she had texted her during her last stop a few hours ago.

**Dasani** : I’ll take Bagel out really quick okay? I’ll be right up!

It’s freaking cold anyways, we don’t like that, we’re southern girls

 **Linds** : Hurry!

Emily can’t believe she’s standing in front of her girlfriend’s door. She can hear Fergy barking when she knocks. Bagel cocks her head at the noise.

“Hi” Lindsey whispers.

She walks right into Lindsey’s opened arms. They envelop her just like they always had. Emily can feel the strong arms around her back and tightens her own even more around Lindsey. Her face is squished into Lindsey’s shoulder. She turns her head a little and takes a deep breath. Lindsey’s familiar scent immediately calming and comforting her.

Even though seeing her girlfriend isn’t a surprise for Emily, it still takes her breath away. It feels so monumental but still like it always felt. Good.

“Hi” She says into the shoulder.

They pull back a little and Emily sees that Lindsey started to tear up. She uses her thumbs to wipe away the tears making their way down Lindsey’s face. She then leans up and ever so softly kisses Lindsey for the first time in too long.

She pulls back after a few seconds right when Lindsey is about to deepen the kiss. Lindsey whines at the loss of contact and starts to pout which makes Emily chuckle.

“Now, maybe we should actually get into your apartment before we give all your neighbors a show, shouldn’t we?”

“Why did you insist on arriving a day earlier than we had planned? Not that I’m not thrilled to have you here already but weren’t you spending time with your family?” Lindsey asks her later when they’re having dinner.

“We said goodbye on March 12th. I thought it was fitting.” She shrugs.


End file.
